The five crawlers she controlled directly were finally in position to attack, but the enemy robot jumped inhumanly high in the air and swatted two of them off the wall with its arm, sending pieces of their bodies falling to the ground. The electric bullets they had intended to unleash on the robot electrocuted their own structures instead.
“Jared, the left side is falling behind!” Motorcad shouted.
The other crawlers fired their deadly precise bullets, but the robot dodged their attacks gracefully.
Come on!
Fai kicked the other robot off her, sending the enemy flying through the air. In a single motion, Fai rolled to her feet, snatched one of Kari’s crawlers off the wall, and rammed it into the one-armed robot. The crawler shot an electrical bullet at point-blank range before making impact. The bullet lodged itself in Fai’s enemy, frying its insides. The humanoid enemy steamed and fell to the ground.
“Hit that other humanoid robot with any EMPs before it can get back up!” Kari shouted her orders.
“On it!” Motorcad replied.
Kari looked around for David. He was twenty feet down the tunnel, leaning against the wall and continuing to fire blasts from his EMP gun. The tunnel had gone from pristine to barely standing in a matter of seconds. She had been in a number of battles, but it always amazed her how fast destruction happened. She checked her strategic view again and found that they were pushing back the enemy in both directions, but her numbers were thin. They only had a fraction of the army they had entered the tunnel with.
“Got him!” Ruth said. “Take that, you—”
“Nice work!” Motorcad said.
“Thank you,” Fai said. “I did not like my probability of survival against both of those robots.”
“Were they AI’s?” Jared asked.
“No, just the bodies,” Fai said.
“But they are too complex to be controlled by a human remotely,” Kari said. “They weren’t designed that way.”
“So there is another AI!” Motorcad said. “I hate it when she’s right.”
“Kari!” David shouted. His stressed voice filled the audio feed and hurt her ears.
“I am detecting vehicles coming, and quickly!” Fai said.
“Which direction?”
“Both!”
Fantastic.
Kari looked around for a place to hide, to evade the onrushing vehicles, but there was nowhere to escape. The tunnel didn’t have any utility closets or rooms they could hide in.
“Get back here, David!” Kari shouted, but she could tell from his heavy breathing that he was already on his way.
“Get out of there or they are going to smash you guys to pieces!” Motorcad shouted.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
“Step back!” Fai pushed Kari and David aside, before pummeling the wall of the tunnel with her fists and feet, breaking huge chunks of concrete from the wall with each blow.
“They’re coming!” Ruth said. “Hurry!”
Not helping, Ruth!
Kari could see the oncoming lights and hear the accelerating engines of the rapidly approaching vehicles. From the reports on the drones she could see there were three tall trucks approaching on both sides of the tunnel. They were the same vehicles that delivered the raw materials to keep the labs’ printers fully supplied. They were tall enough that the tops of the vehicles almost scraped against the top of the tunnel, and they were wide enough that only one of them could fit in the tunnel at the same time.
She ordered all the remaining crawlers to try to destroy the trucks, but she knew she didn’t have the firepower left to stop them in time.
They are going to smash us.
“Hurr—” Jared’s voice was cut off as the communication bubble went active again over the tunnel, cutting Kari off from her friends at Motorcad’s farmhouse.
Well, at least they won’t have to watch.
“Hold your breath,” Fai said as she grabbed Kari and slammed her into the hole in the wall she had just created.
Her helmet smashed into the jagged concrete behind her and she almost blacked out. The trucks reached the point where the ground was filled with graphium corpses of drones and crawlers. Screeching noises filled the tunnel as the trucks didn’t slow down as they dragged themselves through the debris. A second later, she felt David smash into her, pushing her against the wall.
“Fai!” Kari shouted as best as she could from behind David. The lights from the trucks shone bright as they arrived in front of them, and Fai stood there looking back at her. She jumped just as the trucks smashed together in front of them.
Kari wasn’t sure whether she stayed conscious during the crash or not. The overwhelming noise of the vehicles smashing against each other made her head spin. David’s helmet had hit hers pretty hard during the crash, as well, but it was hard to remember the details right now. It took her a while to breathe, to convince herself that she was still alive. It took her another minute to ask the question she didn’t dare know the answer to.
“David?”
He didn’t reply. His body was pushed up against hers in the small hole that Fai had crushed in the wall for them. It was pitch-black, except for a few flickers of flames and electricity from outside that peaked past David’s body. She couldn’t tell if David was breathing or not.
“David!” Kari shouted, which caused her to choke on smoke. She coughed and shouted his name over and over. She tried to move, but there was nowhere for her to go. She was stuck too tightly in the hole.
“Come on, David! Not like this!” She wiggled her head forward and backward, knocking her helmet into his over and over. It was the only thing she could do to try to wake him up.
“Only—” David said, before he broke out in a cough.
“David!” Kari said. She was crying, but she didn’t do anything to hold in the tears. “You’re alive!”
“Only . . . true love’s kiss can bring me fully back,” David said.
“You are such a jerk!” Kari said between tears.
“My head is funny,” David said. He groaned as he tried to move. “And my back is stuck.”
“You got hit pretty hard, didn’t you?” Kari laughed. They were trapped in a hole in a tunnel where they would likely suffocate from the smoke, but at the moment she didn’t care.
“I’ve had worse,” David said. His voice was slowly regaining lucidity, which Kari took as a good sign of no serious damage.
“We’re stuck,” Kari said.
“Yup,” David said after he tried to wiggle around.
“Well, that’s not good . . .”
“What about Fai?”
Fai!
She screamed in her head before she screamed out loud for her friend.
She saved us, but she couldn’t fit in here.
“Fai!” David shouted as well.
They took turns calling out her name.
“I’m coming,” Fai said.
Her voice was distant and followed by the sound of metal scraping against metal. Kari started crying again, but this time David joined her. It took Fai half an hour to finally reach them and another twenty minutes to climb through the twisted wreckage. She burned herself a few times on the mess, but she made it to the far side of the crash site in one piece.
“That was close,” David said as he dusted himself off.
“If there is another AI behind this, I am disappointed by his determination to exterminate us. I apologize for my species,” Fai said.
“Don’t be silly,” Kari said. “You don’t have any responsibility in any of this. You saved us!”
“I nearly didn’t,” Fai said.
Kari looked at Fai’s body and was amazed it was still functioning. Her left arm was dangling from her body, and her entire right side had chunks missing. The parts of her body that were still intact were covered in burn marks and scratches.
“You almost didn’t make it yourself!” Kari said.
“Calculating a path through the collision that didn’t result in my termination was complicated,” Fai said. “But I found a way.”
“Do we keep going?” David asked.
“Yes,” Kari said. “We don’t have anything else to do. All our drones and crawlers are gone. Going into the lab can’t be that much worse than trying to climb out through that mess.”
“If we encounter more enemies, it is unlikely we will be able to defend ourselves,” Fai said.
“We go anyway,” David said. “Let’s finish this.”
They limped down the tunnel toward the research lab. Eventually the lights from the lobby grew from a point in the distance to filling the entire tunnel.
“I don’t detect anything or anyone in the lobby,” Fai said.
Thank goodness.
The lobby was pristine glass and unblemished tile. There weren’t any guards or bodies. It felt coldly welcoming. A bench to the side of the room was too attractive not to sit on for a moment, even though David complained about it.
“Can you try to take control of the facilities?” Kari asked. “Like you did during the shooting?”
“I have been attempting to do so since we entered the communication bubble. With the exception of when my attention was needed elsewhere during the battle and the crash,” Fai said.
“And no luck?” Kari asked.
“No. The security measures are constantly changing. Evolving. I’ve never encountered anything like it.”
Kari wanted to check for herself, to test her skills against the AI she presumed was defending the research lab, but she resisted the urge. She was trying to save the energy she knew she would need in the near future.
“What do you make of it?” Kari asked.
“It seems unlikely that Adrian would be able to do handle this constant level of sophistication,” Fai said. “I believe my sibling is behind this.”
“How do you match up against this sibling?” David asked.
“I am unsure. It is easier to play defense than offense in these matters,” Fai said. “But my estimations would put my sibling at a similar, if not greater, level of capability.”
Kari nodded and took a deep breath, summoning the will and energy to keep going.
“I don’t usually like to get involved with family matters,” Kari said. “But we should probably get moving again.”
“What are we going to do about the EMP gate?” Fai said. “I won’t be able to pass through it.”
“We’ll figure something out,” Kari said as she approached the door to the EMP room. To her surprise, the front wall opened, as did the walls on the far side.
“They are letting us pass through?” David asked.
“It seems so,” Kari said.
“No. This is another trap,” David said.
“Perhaps,” Fai said. “But I will be able to clear the room before it can activate, even in my damaged state.”
“Is there anything on the other side?” Kari said. “Anything they are trying to lead us into?”
“Not that I can detect,” Fai said. “Although I can’t see as well as I used to.”
I’m amazed you can see at all with how you look right now.
“Let’s do it,” Kari said. “We can’t really be any more trapped than we already are, right?”
No one answered, but they cautiously followed her through the EMP room and down the hall to the lab room. She focused on breathing and refused to think about the last time she had run down this hall. The door to the research lab opened, and Kari stepped inside first.
It was exactly as she remembered seeing it the first time. An expansive room filled with glass offices and desks. The floor was dry and there were no hints of the massacre that had occurred here. It felt almost like it had been erased from history and that the abandoned lab floor had always been this way. The only difference was that there were no humans, drones, or anything else moving.
“Did I call the tunnel eerie before?” David asked. “I take it back. This is eerie.”
“Where are they?” Fai asked.
“I think I know,” Kari said.
She walked through the glass office, suppressing more memories with every step. She moved to the center of the room where she found Adrian’s office. Sitting behind his desk, looking as passive as ever, was Adrian. And on the pedestal where Fai’s CB had once been, rested another glowing green orb.
“You were right,” David said.
“I wish I hadn’t been,” Kari said.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
“You’re as unwanted here as you were the first time you stepped foot in my lab,” Adrian said.
Kari stepped into the room with David and Fai by her side. The glass sliding door closed behind her.
“That’s him?” David growled.
He’s never been good about keeping his true feelings about people to himself. I’ve always liked that about him.
“Not. Another. Step,” Adrian said. His voice was low and each word was punctuated emphatically.
David took another step forward, and Adrian stood up suddenly from his desk with an energy gun in his hands. David froze.
“Calm down!” Kari said.
“Good boy,” Adrian said. “And I see you have brought my daughter back to me. How are you, sweet Fai?”
“I am ashamed you would call me that,” Fai said. “After what you have done.”
“That’s no way to talk to your father. Especially in the presence of your darling brother.”
“We know,” Kari said. “We figured that out a while ago.”
“Curious,” Adrian said. “Perhaps you are smarter than I give you credit for, Freelancer.”
The way he said her name almost made her lose control. Nothing set her off like people looking down on her.
“Say hello to your sister, Dot,” Adrian said.
Lights shot out from the ceiling and formed a holographic ball in the air, which looked identical to the one that Fai had first introduced herself from.
“Fai, I am pleased to finally meet you. Are you going to cease attempts to take control of the building from me?” Dot asked. His voice was as youthful and trusting as Fai’s had originally been. Hearing him speak was a reminder at how much Fai had changed over their weeks together.
“Why don’t you let me have control?” Fai asked.
“As you have come to eradicate me and my father, I will not do that,” Dot said.
“We have come for no such thing,” Kari said.
“Then why are you here?” Adrian asked. “Did you miss me? Or did Fai get a little homesick?”
“We came for answers,” Kari said.
“Questions don’t typically require an invading army,” Adrian responded.
“And answers aren’t typically protected by one, either.”
“I suppose, then, this is the part where you ask me questions, confirming to yourself that I am some sort of monster, to justify your feelings and actions. Then we’ll have some sort of resolution, one way or another,” Adrian said.
“It doesn’t have to be that way,” Kari said.
“How do you think this ends?” Adrian said. “Do you see a way out of this scenario where all parties leave happy?”
“I see ways out where we all leave alive,” Kari said.
“There is only one way to that happy ending, and that is for you to turn around now and never come back,” Adrian said.
“You know I can’t do that,” Kari said.
“And you know that I am the only person armed in this room,” Adrian said. “Tell me, sweet Fai, would the three of you be able to stop me before I was able to mortally wound at least one of you?”
“There is the chance that you might miss,” Fai said.
Adrian sighed.
“Dot, can you be more specific than your sister?”
“It is highly unlikely. Even with Fai’s physical advantages,” Dot said.
If he’s going to shoot one of us, it’s going to be me. But not before I get my answers.
“Why did you do it?” Kari asked.
“I see we are going to go through this pointless exercise. If by ‘it’ you mean the unfortunate events that occurred here, then the answer would be that I had to. I was placed in an impossible position. Ignore the Great Agreement and the Passive Intelligence Act or be separated from my work, my children, my life. What would you have done?”
“Christina ordered you to ignore those things?” Kari asked.
“Of course she did. John was never as committed to our research as she was. He was always holding us back, tying our hands, and threatening us at every turn. He wanted to waste AIs, to sell them to consumers as petty slaves. He deserved to die for that alone, for selfishly holding humanity back.”
“She gave you orders, and so you ordered the attack?” David asked.
“Keep up, boyo. That is exactly what I did. I removed John from the equation while freeing myself of his intellectual shackles. Freeing myself of everything, and everyone, allowing myself to create Dot free from any of the superstitious, bureaucratic red tape that those who don’t understand placed in the way of our future.”
“And Kari?” David asked. “She was just someone to place the blame on!”
“With a narrow perspective, yes, that is exactly what she was,” Adrian said.
“And Christina knew about this? After the attack you explained this to her, that this was the only way,” Kari said.
Adrian sighed.
“Yes, yes, yes, of course. Now, how is this going to end? Have these answers satisfied your lust for death?”
And now we have the confession. As long as we can all make it out of this alive there will be justice.
“You killed your own—” David said.
“I did, and I would again. A thousand times over, I would do it again,” Adrian said. “Free your mind of your miniscule perspective and you would see that the future of humanity is dependent on Dot . . . and Fai. War, hunger, poverty, crime, true interstellar space travel, the most deadly diseases, corruption, all of it can come to hand only through their minds. There was no way for me to achieve what must be done unless John was out of the equation, and unless I was allowed to work unfettered by the ignorant. My public death was equally as important in that regard for a number of imperative reasons; my colleagues were an unfortunate inefficiency in my solution. Do you not think that my colleagues would sacrifice themselves for the future they struggled to assist?”
“I think they should have been asked,” Kari said.
“Oh, how the little hacker can lecture on morality. The person who specializes in breaking into things, to which she has no right, thinks she can judge me. It is more immoral for me to not continue with my work. I have an obligation to the future that I cannot ignore.”
“The future doesn’t belong to murderers,” Kari said.
“No, it does not,” Adrian said. “I completely agree. But remember, perspective, little girl! Perspective.”
“Fai continues to aggressively pursue control of the facilities,” Dot said. “I fear she may be successful eventually.”
“Don’t do something you are going to regret, sweet girl,” Adrian said. He held his energy rifle tightly, pointed directly at David.
“Should we get to the endgame now?” Adrian said. “You leave, or one of you dies.”
“Or you turn yourself in and we promise to protect Dot,” Kari said.
“Kari, you can’t!” David said. “He doesn’t have the restrictions that Fai does, he could—”
“That’s the deal,” Kari said. “You pay for your crimes and Fai and Dot will go free. You don’t have to worry about them.”
“I—”
“If your story isn’t a bunch of crap, you’ll take the deal. Your children survive, isn’t that what you wanted?”
“I . . . I’m not finished with my work. There is more that must be done. More AIs, geared specifically for different problems. Fai and Dot are just the beginning—”
“I knew it,” Kari said. “You’re all the same.”
“You’ve never met anyone like me,” Adrian said. “I’m the only one on the planet that can do this work! The only one! Everyone else is decades behind, maybe even more!”
“I don’t care,” Kari said. “I knew a guy just like you. Brilliant. Thought he was going to save the world. He died because he couldn’t realize what he had done was wrong. Don’t be the same way.”
“She is getting closer,” Dot said. His ball of light vibrated nervously. “If she gets control, she will be able to shut me off if she’d like.”
“I wouldn’t do that to you, brother,” Fai said. “You can trust Kari. We will be free, I promise you.”
“Stop or the boy dies,” Adrian said.
There has to be a way out of this . . .
“You aren’t going to back down, and even if we leave here, you know we’ll be back.”
“Well, in that case—”
“Wait!” Kari shouted. “How about a deal?”
“What?” David asked.
“Let’s hear it,” Adrian said.
“A contest. You believe you are in the right, we believe we are in the right. We both can’t have our way, so we solve this the old-fashioned way. I win and you put the gun down. You win and we leave here and never come back.”
“Let me guess, you’d like to challenge me to a hacking contest. Something you little script kiddies can win by loading up someone else’s work.”
“You name the subject matter,” Kari said.
“Kari!” David protested, but she silenced him by raising her hand.
Don’t worry, David. I have a plan. Sort of.
“You can’t be serious,” Adrian said.
“I am,” Kari said.
“What’s the trick?”
“No trick, now, what is the subject matter?”
“Artificial Intelligence,” Adrian said smugly.
“I thought you might choose that,” Kari said. “We can’t compete on creating a genuine AI right here and now. But we can compete on who can program the best in-simulation logic, a pseudo AI for a particular scenario.”
“Go on . . .”
“Capture the flag,” Kari said. “It’s a sim where we both get three mechs. We have ten minutes to write our logic for the mechs. Starting from scratch. Then we let them battle. Last mech standing, or the first team to capture the opponents flag, wins.”
“What language do we use to write our code?” Adrian asked.
“Whatever you want, just no outside libraries or anything.”
“Ha! Who do you think I am?”
“A murderer, but even more than that, a jerk,” Kari said.
“Fai stops trying to take control of the facilities here,” Adrian said.
“Deal,” Kari said.
She sent Fai a quick message privately, to fill her in on her plan.
“She has stopped,” Dot said.
“Thank you, sweet Fai,” Adrian said. He smiled in a way that made Kari nervous. “How I feared the lack of precision in eliminating John’s superstition would result in losing you.”
That’s one way to talk about it. You had your people shoot to kill us both. You talk like you love her like a daughter, but you tried to have her killed for selfish reasons. I would never have done that. Ever.
“Kari, are you sure you want make this deal?” David asked.
“Yes, I am,” Kari said.
I got this.
Kari invited him to her simulation. He joined before she finished adjusting the rules of the game. It took her a few seconds to finish the modifications, but before she could start the game David interrupted them.
“Uh . . . Kari?” David asked.
Kari moved the simulation to the corner of her vision. Now floating just outside Adrian’s office were three large drones. They were the kind equipped with energy rifles, the same as they had faced in the tunnel.
“What’s this?” Kari asked.
“You think I would sit here and answer your questions for no reason?” Adrian said. “You foolish girl.”
“I thought we had a deal!” Kari said.
David looked nervous and for good reason. Even with Fai on their side, they were now severely outgunned.
“Oh, we’ll play your game. Except the agreement has changed. You win, you get to leave. I win, you never do.”
I’ve always hated this stupid game.